


Might Be Prince's Guitar

by calathea



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calathea/pseuds/calathea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick meets Japanese rocker Miyavi in a guitar store in LA. Pete is jealous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for and with doll_revolution, even though I know nothing at all about Miyavi.

Patrick hummed cheerfully in the same key as the door chime as he walked into the little music store he'd found tucked away down a back street a few weeks ago. He had good reason to be cheerful, he thought, lifting a hand in greeting to the store owner, currently draped over the counter reading a magazine. The sun was shining, everyone in the band was recovered from the exhaustion that had dragged at them after the European tour, and they were playing better than ever. Best of all, he'd managed to slip away from another boring meeting about promotion during the tour, heading off into the city on his own. This was the best thing -- one of the _only_ good things -- about LA. Everyone here was an actor, or wanted to be an actor, so no-one cared about one short fat dude from Chicago who sang. And even if they did, everyone was far too _cool_ to show it. It wouldn't be like this again until the hit their New York dates, so he was determined to enjoy the anonymity while he could.

"Hey Patrick," the store-owner, Steve, said laconically as he passed the counter. "Some kid in the back playing your guitar."

"What?" said Patrick, coming to a surprised halt, "What kid?"

Steve shrugged and turned a page in his magazine. "Dunno, some Asian kid. Guy, I think. Maybe. Big hair."

Patrick fumbled with his hat brim for a second. "Oh. Well, maybe I'll look at something else today," he said, trying to mask his disappointment.

"Uh-huh," said Steve, disinterestedly, "If you break it, you buy it."

Patrick nodded, not that Steve noticed, engrossed once more in an article, and wandered towards the back of the store, where the instruments were kept. His eyes went immediately to the place on the wall where 'his' guitar usually hung. He wasn't fooled by Steve's casual attitude -- he knew the man hoped that Patrick would buy the guitar. Steve claimed Prince had played it, which is why Patrick had picked it up the first time. Since then, though (and lacking any evidence of its previous owners) he'd come to appreciate the instrument for just the quality of it, the solidity of the build, the way his fingers slid easily over the frets. It was a disappointment to see the empty space where the guitar should have been.

He pushed open the glass door that separated the instrument area from the rest of the store, and then ground to a halt. Steve hadn't been kidding about the big hair, which covered the face of a lanky, skinny kid who was hunched over the guitar in the middle of the room, strumming on the strings very softly and making tiny adjustments to the tuning of the guitar. The kid looked up when Patrick let the glass door swing closed with a squeak, and then grinned, showing off a complicated looking lip ring.

Guy, Patrick confirmed mentally, since no girl in the history of the _world_ would check someone out the way this kid was checking him out right now. Not even the girls Pete knew, and that was saying something. He sidled awkwardly away from the watching eyes, and tried to look interested in the wall of guitars. After a moment, the strumming started up again, and Patrick breathed a little more easily. He turned around to look at a Gibson, and watched the kid, now folded over the guitar again, out of the corner of his eye.

Something about the kid was familiar, but Patrick couldn't place him. Perhaps it was just the generic Japanese popstar look of the kid: Pete had books and books of photos of pretty Japanese rock boys that he'd bought in one of his frequent fits of shopping madness last time they were in Japan on tour. This guy would have fit in between the covers of any of them.

Suddenly, the kid started the play properly, tapping out the rhythm with his right foot and then breaking into song in what Patrick, whose grasp of foreign languages extended only as far as the occasional Yiddish phrase picked up from Joe's mother and translating from Pete Wentz to English, assumed was Japanese.

It didn't really matter what language it was. The kid was _good_. Really good. Patrick stopped pretending he wasn't listening, and turned to watch, tugging his hat down a little to hide his too-interested eyes.

The kid had his eyes closed, and he was singing and playing like he had no audience at all. Just as suddenly as he had started, though, he stopped, and then replayed the last section with a slight variation, frowning in consideration.

"Huh," Patrick said, and then cursed inwardly when the kid's eyes popped open. They stared at each other. The kid raised one pierced eyebrow.

"You could," Patrick said, finally. "I mean. You could try, uh." He ground to a halt. The kid looked at him. "Can I, uh, with the guitar?"

The kid cocked his head on one side, and Patrick, who had learned exactly six words of Japanese during their last tour, two of which had to do with bodily functions, frowned. "Oh, I guess you don't speak English."

The kid suddenly smiled, and offered him the guitar. "I speak," he said. "You play?"

Patrick nodded, and took the guitar, slinging the strap over his head quickly. "You were," he said, and played the last section that the kid had played, "But, maybe like..."

He played again, and hummed something wordless where the kid's vocals had been, and then came to a halt.

"Ahhhh," the kid said, sounding pleased, when the sound of the guitar had faded away. "Very good."

"Well, you know, not, you don't," said Patrick, feeling his ears turn pink, and he offered the guitar back hastily.

"Miyavi," the kid said, and Patrick fumbled and nearly dropped the guitar.

"I, uh, I don't speak Japanese. Or, you know, whatever language," he said, and cursed his pale skin as the blush spread downward.

"My name is Miyavi," said the kid, looking amused.

"Oh. I'm Patrick," Patrick said, and held out his hand. Miyavi looked at it, and Patrick wondered for a minute whether he should have bowed or something. After a moment though, Miyavi held his own hand out. Guitar players hands, Patrick thought, distractedly, strong and calloused, and he withdrew his own hand quickly.

Miyavi just looked more amused. "I play rock," he said now, "In Japan."

"Oh," said Patrick, "I play here. And even in Japan, sometimes."

"I know. Fall Out Boy," Miyavi said, and quirked his eyebrows again. "Very good. Very fun."

Patrick fidgeted with his hat nervously, and Miyavi's eyes followed his action, then slid down over him again from hat to toes. Patrick felt like someone had dipped him suddenly in hot water. "I, uh," he said, alarmed by how high his voice came out. Miyavi's tongue slid out to stroke over his lip ring, and Patrick lost any memory of what he'd been about to say next.

Suddenly Miyavi stood up, and in one fluid movement replaced the guitar in it's allotted space on the wall before turning back to Patrick. "Come," he said, and walked towards the back wall, unadorned except for a plain door marked "Staff Only", which after a quick glance, he opened.

Patrick, who'd been taken aback by Miyavi's height when he unfolded from the low chair, stumbled as he followed, confused. Miyavi threw a quick look over his shoulder, then caught the sleeve of his denim jacket and tugged him through the door into what proved to be a dark little store-room, filled with shelves of sheet music and guitar strings.

"What...?" he started, and Miyavi pushed him back against the door and smirked, the movement of his lips causing the lip ring to glint in the faint light.

"No noise," said Miyavi, and in a wholly sinuous move, vanished downwards, onto his knees at Patrick's feet.

"Oh, holy _shit_," yelped Patrick, and then stuffed a fist in his mouth when Miyavi looked up at him with raised eyebrows.

Some time later, Patrick staggered out of the store-room, aware of the amused eyes following him. He felt clumsy, disorientated and extraordinarily boneless. He sat down hastily in the chair Miyavi had so recently vacated.

"Show me," said Miyavi, picking up the guitar, and giving it to him before choosing another from the wall and folding himself down onto the floor nearby.

Patrick stared at him, stared at the guitar, and plucked the strings. Who _cared_ if Prince had owned it or not? He was _so_ buying this guitar.

* * *

They met twice more in the back of the music store before Patrick left on tour and Miyavi presumably went back to doing whatever he should have been doing while he was blowing Patrick in Steve's storeroom. It wasn't all groping among the guitar strings, though, and even if their actual verbal communication was limited, they played enough music together that Patrick didn't feel too weird offering Miyavi a piece of paper with his e-mail address scribbled on it the last time they met.

"We're leaving tomorrow," he said, picking up the guitar (which he had decided he really did have to buy, uncertain Prince provenance notwithstanding, though he'd held off until today to actually make the purchase). "You could, like, e-mail me. If you wanted. I mean, you totally don't have to. But, it would be cool. If you wanted."

Miyavi had just grinned and made a big show of folding the paper carefully and slipping it into the back pocket of his leather pants, and Patrick, who was surprised he could get even a piece of paper in there given the skin tight fit, watched the action, made a wordless little noise and stumbled out of the instrument room, almost knocking over a drum kit in the process.

And that was that, Patrick assumed. A weird, gay little interlude with Miyavi, who the power of Google had confirmed really _was_ a Japanese rocker, and _exactly_ the kind of guy that Pete probably had several photo-books of stashed in his apartment. Patrick, when he wasn't shaking his head over the surrealism of the whole thing, mostly felt faintly smug with the knowledge that millions of Japanese kids would literally kill him if they knew the use Patrick had put Miyavi's much-photographed mouth to in the back of Steve's music shop, and vaguely regretful to have lost the chance to jam with another guitar player.

However, just two days after the start of the tour, Patrick was checking his email and saw an unexpected name in his inbox. He hastily clicked on it, and found a photo of Miyavi and a one and a half minute long mp3 file that he automatically clicked on. He recognised Miyavi's playing style, even before the vocals kicked in at twenty-three seconds. At a minute and a half, the sound jangled away to nothing, just what sounded like some cursing, and Patrick grinned, recognising some of the words from their impromptu sessions back in LA. He flipped through his own files and, without thinking too much about it, mailed back a beat he'd been working on that had all gone horribly wrong about two minutes in.

And that, apparently, was enough to encourage Miyavi to e-mail him pretty much every day, usually little pieces of music and a photo, and the occasional word or two of badly spelled English. Patrick couldn't quite work out the pictures, most of which were more explicit than Pete's infamous cock shots, but all of which seemed to have been taken professionally and in costume. It was cool, though, except for the part where even the sound of his e-mail programme signalling the arrival of new mail started to be enough to get his blood rushing south, which of _course_ Pete noticed, and teased him about, demanding to know who Patrick's new internet boyfriend was.

(There was also the embarrassing incident where Patrick, absently singing something Miyavi had sent him that he'd listened to often enough to get the phonetics of the words down, even if he had no idea what they were, caused a Japanese reporter standing nearby waiting to interview them to blush, drop her coffee cup, and run away very quickly. He took care not to sing any of Miyavi's songs again where anyone could hear him.)

Despite all this, and the fact that Miyavi wore fewer and fewer clothes in each successive picture, it was still a total shock to get an e-mail in the middle of June that said: "At ur Tacoma show. Meet up?:) MYV"

Patrick blinked, thought about it, and then e-mailed back for an address to send the backstage pass.

~ * ~

"Wait, you really do have an internet boyfriend?" Pete was saying incredulously, "The Japanese guy who keeps sending you music is your internet boyfriend?"

"He's not an internet boyfriend, I met him in LA," Patrick explained impatiently for about the fortieth time. "Will you shut up, he'll be here soon."

"But," said Pete, "He's coming here? Dude."

He waved his arm around to indicate the bare walls of the artist's dressing room at the Tacoma Dome as if to indicate the sacred space that Miyavi would be invading. Andy, sitting next to him on the sofa reading, flinched and ducked before Pete could hit him.

"You brought Ashlee," was all Patrick said, because that was pretty much the statement all of the guys were using every time Pete complained about something they did this tour: You brought Ashlee.

Whatever Pete would have said in reply to this was lost when there was a soft knock on the door. "Hey guys," Joe said, and his voice was weird. "Patrick has a visitor."

His eyes were huge, and he stepped aside quickly to reveal Miyavi, who beamed impartially at everyone and waved one lace-gloved hand at them all. Patrick jumped up. "Hi!" he said, seeing Pete's eyes bugging out and the words that were trembling on his lips about to come spilling out. "Uh, hey. Wanna come, uh, see the stage or something?"

Miyavi looked around the room quickly, set down the guitar case he was carrying just inside the doorway and nodded. "Yes. Hello, goodbye," he said, nodding politely to the rest of Fall Out Boy, and Patrick caught his hand and rushed him away.

They were not quite quick enough to avoid hearing Joe's confused voice, though. "Patrick's internet boyfriend is a _girl_? Or, OK, he's probably too tall to be a girl. Ooh! Do you think he's a _ninja_?"

Two hours later, Patrick was feeling a lot more relaxed. He and Miyavi had found a couple of dark corners in the area in which to... renew their acquaintance, and Joe seemed to have recovered enough that when they went back to the dressing room and Miyavi pulled out his guitar, he went to get his own.

"Dude," he whispered to Patrick when Miyavi slipped out of the room to go the men's room for a minute, "Where did you _find_ this guy?"

Pete, who had been sulking in the corner the whole time, ostentatiously writing in his journal and paying no attention to the rest of the group, broke in: "Yeah, where _did_ you find this guy, Patrick?"

Patrick shrugged, but was saved from answering by Andy walking into the room, followed closely by Miyavi. Andy stood still for a moment and then sighed heavily and tugged off his t-shirt. "It's so stuffy in here," he said, sounding resigned.

"Oooh," said Miyavi, and all eyes shifted to him. "May I?" he continued, gesturing to Andy's back.

"May you what?" said Andy, confused, and then stood stock still as Miyavi reached out to trace a line of the intricate tattoos on Andy's back with one long finger.

"Pretty," breathed Miyavi, after a moment in which everyone seemed to freeze and hold their breaths. Patrick felt a lightning stab of jealousy as Andy, who to the best of Patrick's knowledge was the straightest guy _ever_, with no Dude Exception of any type, made a tiny sound in the back of his throat.

Miyavi let his hand drop, and the tableau broke. "You have ink?" Joe said, apparently oblivious to the simmering volcano that was Pete Wentz in the corner of the room.

"Ink?" said Miyavi, "Oh, _hai_, yes," and he tugged off his own ragged long-sleeved shirt and turned around.

"Oooh," said Andy, "The heart sutra."

Patrick blinked at the long lines of text scrolling down Miyavi's back (Andy's recognition of it being just another example of his peculiarly well-educated omniscience and therefore unremarkable) and tried not to drool.

"Yes," said Miyavi, and beamed at him before taking a seat next to Joe on the sofa, still shirtless. The three of them embarked on a conversation of their various tattoos, all of them shedding clothes and twisting and turning in their seats in various vaguely pornographic ways to display sections of skin. Patrick just watched, smiling.

"You have?" Miyavi asked Patrick, gesturing to him.

"Me? No. None." he said, and grinned. "Don't like pain."

Miyavi clicked his lip ring against his teeth and grinned back at him.

"Patrick," said Pete, after Miyavi had been distracted by Joe asking for a translation of one of his tattoos. "Can we talk outside for a second?"

Patrick rolled his eyes, but nodded and followed Pete out of the door. "What, Pete?" he said, as soon as they were in the corridor and the door had clicked closed. "I have a guest, remember."

"Trick, dude," said Pete, and then stopped. "What the _hell_?"

Patrick just looked at him. "What the hell, what, Pete?" he said, hating the wash of colour up his face.

"Dude," Pete said again.

"No, seriously, Pete, what?" Patrick said, folding his arms. "What exactly is your problem?"

"This _guy_ Patrick," Pete said, dropping his voice to a whisper. "He's like, wearing _lace gloves_, and his hair is _freakish_."

"And your wardrobe choices are entirely above reproach, are they?" Patrick said, but Pete over-rode him.

"And he doesn't like anime, and he's Japanese, and dude, some of his tattoos don't even make _sense_," Pete rushed on, ignoring Patrick's muttered response about the meaning of _skeletons_. "And, man, I know he plays the guitar, but he doesn't speak _English_. I mean, what the hell are you basing this relationship on? You brought this guy backstage and I bet you've never said more than a hundred words to him. What do you even know about him?"

Patrick leaned in and looked at him, as coldly as he could ever manage to look at his best friend and whispered fiercely: "What do you think our relationship is based on, Pete? Music and _sex_. I like both. He likes both. We have a lot of fun."

He dropped his voice a little lower, "And I know he gives great blowjobs, Pete."

Pete recoiled with a wordless exclamation of horror, and Patrick stepped back towards the door to the dressing room. He pointed a finger at Pete, "You brought _Ashlee_," he said, and turned his back on Pete's outraged face as he opened the door.

Joe was playing something now, and Miyavi was nodding his head and tapping his foot loudly on the floor to the beat. Andy was holding his book again, but he was watching them jam, and Patrick could see his foot tapping too. Miyavi looked up when Patrick clicked the door shut again, said "All okay?" and beamed at him, showing off perfect white teeth.

"Yeah, all okay," Patrick said, and went to pick up his own guitar (possibly previously owned by Prince).

* * *

The plans for the summer had been insane enough, Patrick had thought, when they were just finishing their own tour and then jetting around Europe to play the festivals. He'd expected to be flat out exhausted by the end of August, and that was _before_ the breakup with Ashlee or, more precisely, what Ashlee had to say about Pete post-breakup, hit the press. Post Ashlee's tearful tell-all confessions, Patrick felt like a centipede in rollerskates most days, and just plain dead the rest of the time. He got through Leeds and then Reading on a combination of pure adrenaline and more Coke Zero than any human being should consume, and was more grateful for their arrival at their hotel in London than he could ever have believed possible. They had a full day here before they re-entered the hell that was London's Heathrow airport, headed for only-God-and-their-manager knew where at this point in the trip, and Patrick was _determined_ to make the most of it.

He had quietly declined Joe and Andy's invitation to party with them at the rock hotspots of the city, and since Pete was busy yelling at someone through the Sidekick he had apparently surgically attached to his ear, Patrick was able to sidle off towards the elevators unseen, winding his way through hushed, thickly carpeted corridors to the room he had no intention of leaving for the next twenty-four hours.

For once, the key card worked the first time and he staggered through the door, dumped his bags on the floor, and walked over to the huge bed, dropping facedown onto it with a sigh. He was never going to move, ever again, he decided, even though it was only one in the afternoon.

After about fifteen minutes, though, he realized the buttons of his denim jacket were digging into him, and he felt hot, sweaty and uncomfortable. He decided the first order of business was a shower, but somewhere between shedding his stained, stinky clothing in favour of the bathrobe the hotel provided and the shower, he decided he needed music, and once he had his laptop set up and his latest iTunes playlist on at the volume he liked, it seemed ridiculous to miss a chance to use the hotel's free wireless connection to check his e-mail.

Patrick was just scanning rapidly through a few messages from friends and family when an instant message popped up, and he smiled, and settled more comfortably in his seat. Miyavi wasn't really good enough at writing English for a very long conversation (and what he did say was usually filled with txt speak, which Patrick hated), but with all the international travel and Miyavi's own punishing tour schedule Patrick hadn't heard from him in almost a month. They hadn't actually _seen_ each other since Patrick's last forty-eight hour stopover in LA at the beginning of July, just before the festival season really kicked off, and even then all they had had time for was a brief, slightly nostalgic rendez-vous at Steve's music store.

>   
> MYV_ninja: Hi patrick :)  
> antifrontman: Hi Miyavi!  
> MYV_ninja: where r u 2day  
> antifrontman: London, England  
> antifrontman: Where are you?  
> MYV_ninja: Hotel?  
> antifrontman: Yeah, very fancy. Chesterfield Mayfair. My room is called the [MUSIC SUITE](http://www.chesterfieldmayfair.com/default.asp?id=3&typeID=2&AccommodationID=3&sc=1&ImageID=5)! :D  
> MYV_ninja: !!!  
> 
> 
> *MYV_ninja has signed off.  
> 

Patrick blinked, surprised, but went back to his e-mail, assuming that Miyavi had lost his connection. He was chuckling over a message from his brother when there was a soft tap on his door.

He sighed. If this was Pete, wanting to tell him about whatever new outrage Ashlee had committed, he'd... well, actually, he'd probably sit and listen, and hate Ashlee on Pete's behalf, because it was _Pete_ and that was what you did for your best friend. He sighed again, and, pulling the bathrobe a little tighter around himself, opened the door.

"_Konnichi wa,_" said Miyavi, quietly, and scraped a hand through his wild, purple-streaked hair.

Patrick boggled at him. "Dude," he said, "What...? How...?"

"You say Chesterfield Mayfair. Here I am, room 206!" said Miyavi, "Three nights."

He pantomimed amazement at Patrick, who shook his head and smiled back.

"Well, come in," Patrick said after they stood for a moment, grinning stupidly at one another, "I was just. I was going to shower, but come in."

Miyavi stepped into the room, and immediately kicked off his flip-flops. Patrick shut the door, pausing only to hang the Do Not Disturb sign over the doorknob.

When he turned back, Miyavi was looking at the room with a puzzled expression. "Why is this the music room?" he asked.

"I. I don't know," Patrick said, "Well, the bathroom walls are covered in sheet music, I suppose."

Miyavi looked at him, brow faintly wrinkled.

"You know," Patrick said, and waved his hands around in a random gesture, "Like, music written down?"

Miyavi still looked confused, so Patrick beckoned to him and threw open the door to the bathroom.

"Oh," he said, and turned to grin at Patrick. "Strange!"

Something profoundly erotic about the contrast of Miyavi's red lips, the flash of his white teeth and the black hook that pierced one corner of his mouth suddenly slammed into Patrick and he reached out one hand to tug Miyavi closer, reaching up to press a kiss to the other corner of his smiling mouth.

Miyavi stepped back, and for a moment Patrick's stomach dropped queasily towards his shoes. "Uh," he started, fumbling for something to say about the line he just crossed, but Miyavi just blinked at him and then tugged the hem of his t-shirt from his baggy jeans, pulling it over his head in one smooth move. Patrick's eyes dropped automatically to the t-shirt as it fell to the floor, and when he looked up again, Miyavi's hands were already working the button fly of his jeans.

"Shower?" Miyavi said, and his jeans hit the floor.

Patrick watched, open-mouthed, as Miyavi stepped neatly out of his pants, before reaching up to tug a couple of clips out of his hair, allowing it to fall over his shoulders. He tossed them onto the counter and, totally unselfconscious (not, the tiny rational remnant of Patrick's mind remarked, that Miyavi had much to be self-conscious about), he turned to fiddle with the settings on the shower. Once he had the water flowing to his standards, he turned to look at Patrick, still standing, mouth no doubt unattractively agape, in his bathrobe.

Seeing Patrick unmoving, Miyavi reached out and tugged at the collar of the robe. "Too many clothes," he said, tugging again, and Patrick caught his breath. The shower room was steamy by now, the mirrors and Patrick's glasses fogging up, but he could see the shadow of doubt that crossed Miyavi's face when he remained motionless.

"Yes," he said, finally, "Yeah, okay."

Thinking it would be easier if his vision were a little impaired, Patrick came further into the room and placed his glasses neatly on the counter by the sink, before loosening the tie of his robe and letting it slide to the floor. He met Miyavi's eyes almost defiantly, but Miyavi just grinned at him with unimpaired good humour, and after a moment, Patrick climbed into the claw-footed bath, sighing loudly as he stepped under the spray. "God, that feels good," he moaned.

Miyavi laughed, and handed him some of the little bottles from the collection the hotel provided. Patrick quickly soaped himself up and allowed the water to wash away the lather, before washing his hair just as efficiently. Miyavi stayed on the other side of the foggy glass walls of the shower, intent on some mysterious activity. Patrick had just emerged from the spray again when Miyavi stepped into the bath.

Patrick burst out laughing. Miyavi's hair was tucked primly into the plastic shower cap the hotel had provided. Miyavi mock-frowned at him. "Too many hours to dry," he said, and shrugged.

Patrick tugged him forward, and reached up again to kiss him, Miyavi stooping a little to meet his lips. It was awkward, that same rational corner of Patrick's mind noted, kissing a taller man while in a slippery bathtub, especially when you had to try not to unsettle his shower cap. They broke apart slowly though, Miyavi straightening up with his eyes still part-closed, licking his lips as he did so. Patrick almost growled and, feeling suddenly bold, dropped (though not nearly as gracefully as Miyavi might have) to his knees, the metal of the tub warm beneath his shins.

He looked up along Miyavi's lean body. "I thought we could, uh, switch it up a little," Patrick said, feeling awkward again. "Um, if that's okay, you know."

Miyavi's eyes were wide, but he raised one eyebrow almost sarcastically and grinned, before reaching down and rubbing his thumb gently along Patrick's lower lip. Patrick grinned back and thought, unexpectedly, how much _fun_ this was.

~*~

He almost changed his mind about the fun when he surfaced drowsily from a nap face down among the heaps of pillows in the bed to find Miyavi lying naked beside him, doing -- doing something, something that Patrick couldn't identify, that involved a feather-light touch stroking in spirals over his back.

"What the hell?" he started, twitching uncomfortably, his mind flipping madly through every weird scenario he'd ever seen in Andy's abandoned manga books. "Miyavi--?"

"Shhhh," said Miyavi, uninformatively, and shifted to sprawl across Patrick's legs, pinning him to the bed.

Patrick struggled for a second, but for a skinny dude, Miyavi seemed to weigh quite a lot, and after a moment he subsided, flopping bonelessly back onto the bed. "You'd better not be doing anything weird," he said, and Miyavi chuckled, the buzz of sound thrumming through Patrick's skin where their bodies met.

"Not weird," he said, "So much white skin, so pretty. Making it prettier." His hand reached into the field of Patrick's vision, and shook a little bottle of Pete's quick-dry liquid eyeliner at him. Patrick eyed it suspiciously, but suspected it had found its way into his own toiletry bag by mistake for Miyavi to find.

He grunted. "I'm not _pretty_," he said, but Miyavi just murmured something unintelligible, and started to paint something over Patrick's right shoulderblade. After a few moments, Patrick sighed and, lulled by Miyavi's absent humming, let himself relax into the pillows again. They'd left the curtains open, and the light that poured through was yellow and orange against his eyelids when they slid closed. It was only when Miyavi leaned down close to his skin and blew softly that he came back to full awareness, suddenly prickling and ticklish at the feel of the warm, damp puff of air flowing over his skin.

"Um," he said, and shifted a little beneath Miyavi. The weight lifted off his legs, and he rolled onto his side to face Miyavi, who flipped back the hair that was still hanging loose around his shoulders. "What did you draw on me?"

Miyavi shrugged, and, sitting up, tugged Patrick's hand to encourage him to his feet. He walked them both over to a large three paneled mirror in one corner of the room, and, suddenly confronted by the differences between their bodies, Patrick tried to twist away.

"No, no, really, dude, I don't think," Patrick said urgently, squirming away from the hold Miyavi had on his shouders. "Look, this isn't, I mean, it's not my thin--mmph!"

His protests were muffled by Miyavi's mouth on his. After a long moment, Miyavi turned him back to face one of the mirrors, positioning him so he could see his own back in another.

"See?" he said, "Pretty." One long finger traced the swirling patterns he had drawn the length of Patrick's back. Patrick looked at the two of them in the mirror, backlit and bathed in gold from the sunlight still edging through the window.

He reached up to cup Miyavi's face, and grinned shyly. "Well, maybe."

~ * ~

They ordered one of every dessert they liked the sound of from the room service menu just before midnight, their second order of food that night. "My bill is going to be ridiculous," Patrick told Miyavi, but then shrugged and called in the order.

After speaking to the room service people, Patrick replaced the receiver of the phone and frowned in thought. "You know," he said, "I don't think I've heard my cellphone once the whole time I've been here. I wonder if it's getting a signal."

He wandered over to the desk and stirred the pile of crap that had accumulated on the desk over the last ten hours, until he came up with his phone. "Huh," he said, noticing it had been turned off at some point. He was about to turn it back on when Miyavi plucked it from his fingers and tossed it onto a nearby chair.

"It's late," he said, and dipped his head to kiss Patrick. "Not time to call anyone."

They were still kissing, Patrick's hands buried in Miyavi's hair, when there was a sharp knock on the door. "Room service!" an English voice called.

"Eep!" Patrick yelped, and he scrambled for the bathroom even though he was decently enough covered in boxers. He emerged a moment later tying his bathrobe, only to find Miyavi coming back into the bedroom with a fully-loaded room service tray. His eyes widened, and he followed Miyavi over to the bed.

"Hey! How did... um, did you answer the door?" His eyes traced over Miyavi's naked body, covered only by his tattoos, and the chords for a new song that Patrick had written across his hips.

Miyavi winked.

"This way, no tip," he said gleefully. He put the tray down on the bed, knocked Patrick to his back, and straddled his hips.

Patrick's eyes glazed as all the blood in his body shot straight south. Miyavi licked his lower lip and grinned. "Hungry?" he asked. Patrick just nodded, and let his lips curl up.

Miyavi reached back and picked a strawberry off the tray, put it in his mouth, and slowly, slowly leaned forward toward Patrick, who arched off the bed and met him halfway.

Dessert took a long time to eat.

~*~

It was light again when Patrick twitched and rolled over on to his back. His shoulder felt almost hot where the sun was shining on it.

He stretched and yawned, enjoying the soft drift of fabric across his skin and an all-encompassing feeling of well-being. No need to wonder where he was waking up today, he thought, even though he hadn't opened his eyes yet. He was sticky, probably stinky, completely boneless, and about as satisfied as he had ever been in his life. He slid his hand along the bed until it brushed against Miyavi's naked hip, which he stroked absent-mindedly until Miyavi reached down and linked their fingers together. Patrick smiled and slid back into sleep.

~*~

The light was brighter when he woke again, and his hand was empty. He sat up. Miyavi was sitting, eyes half-closed, in the armchair in the corner of the room. He was fully dressed.

"Um," said Patrick, rubbing his hands over his face. "What are you doing all the way over there?"

"I have a flight," Miyavi said, "In a few hours. I must pack, and..."

He broke off, waving his hands vaguely, and Patrick nodded. "Me too," he said, after a quick glance at the clock by the bedside. "So we should. Yeah. We should probably both, you know, do our thing."

Miyavi nodded. "Yes. Probably."

Neither of them moved. "Okay," said Patrick. "I had... This was fun. This was great. Thank you for... for coming to find me."

"Thank you," said Miyavi, and then stopped. They looked at one another for a long moment, and then Miyavi came to his feet suddenly, strode across the room and bent down to kiss Patrick, licking across his bottom lip, before turning to leave. Patrick watched him pull open the door, surprising Pete, who was standing with his fist raised ready to knock.

"Hello Pete," said Miyavi. He turned, raised a hand in farewell to Patrick, and was gone before Patrick could wave in reply.

The door swung slowly closed on Pete's stunned expression, but at the last possible moment he jammed a foot between the door and the frame and pushed it open again, storming into the room.

Patrick sighed. "Morning, Pete," he said, wryly.

Pete glared at him. "Where the HELL have you been? I must have called you three hundred times last night, and the fucking hotel wouldn't tell me what room you were in, fucking client confidentiality, even when I told them you were my best friend, and they wouldn't even call you for me, said you had asked not to be disturbed. I eventually had to bribe the concierge this morning."

He flailed his arms at Patrick. "Except, now I don't need to ask what the hell you were doing, because you were obviously _here_, fucking your Japanese boy toy, and oh my god, what the hell did you do to your _neck_?"

Patrick, blinking at the torrent of words from Pete, tried to look down his own neck, catching sight of the slightly smudged swirls and spirals on his collar bones.

"Is that a tattoo?" Pete shrieked, "You got a _tattoo_ with him? In _London_? Dude, who even _knows_ what they think is hygienic in this country!"

"It's not a tattoo," Patrick said, trying to stem the flow of words from Pete. "It's just. It's like, eyeliner, it'll come off when I shower."

Derailed, Pete just stared at him, open-mouthed.

"And dude, seriously? _Boy toy_?" Patrick said, suddenly angry himself, "He's like, three years older than me, and he's been in the business as long as either of us has. And, you know, you don't ask _me_ before you run off and get tattooed, so, even if I had, and this wasn't temporary, this wouldn't be any of your fucking business, Pete, just like it's none of your fucking business who I sleep with."

Pete flared up again at this. "Everything about you is my business, Patrick," he said, flatly, folding his arms over his chest. "And if you wanted, I would check in with you before I got a single other tattoo."

"Yeah, I notice you didn't offer to check in with me before you got yourself another girlfriend," Patrick said, bitterly. "And hey, maybe you should, unless you _like_ having your name, _our name_, trampled all over in the tabloids."

Pete went white at that, and he crossed his arms tighter over his chest. "Wait and see how long it takes for _your_ name to hit the tabloids," he said, finally, sounding as though he was gritting his teeth. "How discreet were _you_ last night, Patrick?"

With that parting shot, he stalked across the room and slammed the door open. "We leave in two hours," he said, not bothering to turn back to face Patrick. "Be ready."

The door swung closed again behind him with an anti-climatic click, and Patrick sighed, and flopped back into the tumbled sheets on the bed.

That hadn't gone well, he thought, miserably, and closing his eyes, relived fragments of the night before -- Miyavi coming to his room, neither of them checking to see who had seen him come in. Their laughter and sounds of passion, which had travelled who knew how far through thin hotel walls. The curtains they'd left open so they could bask in the sun, leaving them exposed to any eyes that cared to look in from neighbouring buildings. The room service bill with meals for two. Miyavi, waltzing to the door naked to collect the tray from the surprised waiter.

He rolled over. That really hadn't gone well.

* * *

The break came at just the right time, a few days after they arrived back in the US. Their management gave them three weeks, promising they wouldn't book anything at all. No promotion. No media spots. Nothing. They were allowed to fade into obscurity for a full twenty-one days. Patrick caught himself wondering exactly when his life spiraled so far away from the norm that _not_ being on television or radio for three entire weeks was a novelty, shook it off, and settled down to the serious job of getting himself comfortable in the house he'd bought in Chicago but never precisely lived in yet. He called some old friends, spent time with his mother, went to his favourite record store and dropped a fortune on new music.

And he waited.

Back in the beginning, being on a break used to mean about seventy-two hours of silence from the guys, and then an ever increasing volume of calls and e-mails and visits, until finally everyone found themselves piled on the ratty old sofa in the Wentz family basement, laughing at bad sci-fi and eating popcorn by the bucketload. Andy and Joe stuck pretty much to their usual time-table, Joe e-mailing over his latest guitar riff at midnight on the third day after they got back, Andy sending over a track from a new album he'd heard that he thought Patrick would like.

It was late one night, almost a full week after they got back before the e-mail Patrick had more than half-expected ever since London arrived in his inbox. The subject line was: 'new lyrics?'.

It wasn't that Patrick hadn't spoken to Pete since London. When you were living in a confined space with two other people and under scrutiny every minute of every day from way too many fans (most of them with blogs) and dozens of sharp eyed reporters with cameras, you didn't have a _choice_ about finding a way to get along. Their way of getting along usually meant faking it (badly) for about a day, before whoever had said the most unforgivable thing this time broke down and almost, but not quite, apologized. Pete would blog, Patrick would read it behind his back, and that would be the last time the topic of the fight was mentioned right up until the moment when Pete presented Patrick with a stylistic nightmare of unpunctuated almost-poetry, under the flimsy pretext of providing lyrical content, thus ensuring Patrick had to sing about it regularly, possibly for the rest of his life.

Apparently, Patrick thought, reading the email, Pete was expecting Fall Out Boy to drown their listeners in a sea of bewildered, hurt angst in the next album. While the words went very well with the moody, minor key music Patrick had been composing, the sheer volume of them did suggest to him that for once, this wasn't something they could just tacitly agree to never speak of it again. Or at least, not unless they were prepared to take the blame for an upsurge in sales of black clothes and teenage suicide, anyway.

The problem was that if he was going to talk to Pete about it, Patrick really needed to be able to get hold of Pete. He had left a series of ever more exasperated voice-mails, e-mails and even risked talking to Ryan Ross in his efforts, but Pete remained elusive.

The _other_ problem, the one that stopped Patrick from pulling out the big guns and calling Pete's mother for information on his whereabouts, was that he was not really sure what the "it" was that he was supposed to be talking to Pete about. He had sort of apologized for what he'd said about Pete enjoying the drama of his always insane girlfriends, but Pete had just shrugged. There hadn't been any repercussions from the stay in London, (the people of the city, and more particularly the staff at the Mayfair, apparently blase about naked hotel guests, or at least disinterested in the sex lives of short, balding musicians), so it couldn't really be the risk Pete thought he might have been running.

That left him with the option of it being either Miyavi in general or Patrick having sex that bothered Pete, and Patrick wasn't about to apologize for either of those things. And seriously, if Pete's problem was he disapproved of Patrick occasionally, when he could find someone willing, having sex, as far as Patrick was concerned Pete would be writing miserable lyrics about black clouds with no silver linings in his _nursing home_ before Patrick would talk to him again.

He was therefore half-heartedly scrolling through the address book on his laptop wondering who else he could call to find out Pete's whereabouts, when his e-mail pinged. His eyes widened when he read the message and he quickly e-mailed back a reply. Closing down the laptop, he took quick stock of his surroundings. He seemed to have moved straight from 'settling in' to 'slobbing out', he decided, and set about cleaning the worst of the chaos.

Half an hour into his cleaning spree, though, the doorbell rang, and, still carrying a garbage bag, he headed towards the front door. Pete stood on the doorstep, and Patrick's first thought was that he looked _terrible_, the hat and hoodie he was wearing not hiding the dark circles under his eyes.

"Hey," he said, and Patrick flinched, realizing he'd been staring for long seconds. "Are you going to let me in, Trick, or not?"

"In, of course," Patrick said, and stepped aside, waving distractedly with the hand still holding the garbage bag, which clanked. "Oh, let me just. I was just cleaning up, I have someone coming over tomorrow. When did you get into town?"

Pete followed him to the kitchen, where he tied up the bag then left it by the back door for later. "This morning. I flew in from LA."

"You're staying with your parents?" Patrick asked, leading the way back to his newly tidy living room, dropping into his favourite armchair while Pete curled up in the corner of the sofa.

"Yeah," he said, and shrugged. "You know my mom, she wants me to hang around for a while, and I have stuff to do here."

"I almost called your mom this afternoon," Patrick said, grinning, "You weren't answering your phone, I thought she might tell me where you were. She thinks I'm a nice young man, you know."

Pete nodded, but didn't smile, and Patrick felt the grin on his own face slip away. They sat in silence for a long moment, Pete pulling at a thread on the cuff of his hoodie. "So who's coming over?" he asked, finally, and Patrick blinked.

"Oh, uh," he said, "Miyavi. He just e-mailed me like, an hour ago to say there was some screw-up with his schedule and he's going to be Chicago for part of the day."

Pete seemed to freeze. "Miyavi," he said, tonelessly.

"Yeah," Patrick looked at him, crossing his arms. "Don't pretend you don't remember who he is. He's..."

"I remember who he is," Pete hissed, suddenly. "Damn it, Patrick, I can't believe you're serious with this guy. He's a _Japanese pop singer_, for God's sake, he's going to go back there, and I know you say it doesn't matter, but does he even speak English with you? And--"

"I'm _not_," Patrick said, belligerently, breaking into Pete's flood of words.

"--he obviously doesn't care about your reputation if he's going to waltz out of your hotel room half-naked, and-- wait. What?" Pete said, confused.

"I'm not serious," Patrick said, and glared at him. "I told you that already."

"No, you said. And he. I mean, he was at the hotel in _London_, and you just disappeared, and then when I found you again, he was with you," Pete said, frowning back at him.

"Yeah, it was a _coincidence_, Pete, I was as surprised as you were. Hell, _he_ was as surprised as you were. When I answered the door that day I thought it was going to be _you_," Patrick said, exasperated. "It wasn't planned. And yes, Pete, I do know he's going back to Japan, because, hi, I'm not actually _stupid_. In fact, that's why he's coming over tomorrow -- he's flying back to LA and then straight back to start his Japanese tour."

"Oh," Pete stopped. "And you're not, like, bummed about that?" he said, tentatively.

Patrick sighed irritably. "No. I mean, yes, it was awesome when he showed up in London, but it's not a big thing."

Pete blinked at him.

"Look, Pete," Patrick said after a long pause, "I don't know why you have this idea stuck in your head that I'm, I don't know, breaking my heart over the guy, but I'm not. _Really_. Not everything has to be a big world-ending love affair, you know. Or maybe it does for you. But, me, no, not so much."

Embarrassed, he leaned forward in his chair and contemplated his feet. He heard a rustle as Pete unfolded from his position on the sofa, and then a hand with chipped black nail polish moved into his field of vision and gently patted his knee.

"Okay," said Pete, withdrawing his hand after a moment. "So you're not in love with him?"

Patrick blew out a long breath, and made himself look at Pete. "No. He's just, you know, he's nice, and I liked him and he liked me. It was good." He thought about the sunshine, yellow and gold on Miyavi's ink-marked skin. "It was fun. That's all."

"And he's not in love with you?" Pete said, and Patrick felt himself blush again.

"No. I mean, I hope not. No. It's not something we ever talked about," he said.

Pete sat back in corner, curling up again. He looked thoughtful. "Sex and music, right? _Fun_. That's what I saw in London."

"Right," said Patrick. "I mean. Yeah, pretty much."

"And that's what you _want_?" Pete asked, and Patrick could tell from his elaborately casual tone of voice that he was trying to hide something else in the question.

"Right then? Yeah, sure. Not forever, but. Yeah. We weren't hurting anyone. We weren't hurting each other. We were just, you know, bed, and music, and sunshine, and more sugar than anyone over the age of sixteen should eat," Patrick said, and then winced. "And I really don't want to deconstruct my sexual experiences with you, Pete."

"No, okay," Pete said, and paused for a moment before saying in a surprisingly small voice, for Pete Wentz, "But you're okay?"

"Well, I'm kind of wishing we weren't having this conversation right now, but yes, I'm fine. All in one piece." Patrick said, and rolled his eyes.

Pete nodded. "Well, okay then," he said, and ducked his head. "Me too. In one piece, again. If you were wondering."

"I was. That's good," Patrick said, and waited for more.

Pete didn't take the bait, though, but curled up a little tighter and with something close to his old grin, said: "So did you hear what Ryan Ross did?"

Patrick, relieved at the change in subject, kicked his legs out and leaned back into his armchair. "I talked to him earlier, and Spencer grabbed the phone away from him to tell me. With the thing, and the green paint and the _rabbits_?" he said, chuckling.

Pete nodded, and then started to laugh, until Patrick felt warmed through by the familiar sound. "And Brendon running around without his pants? Jon told me he and Spencer are going to write a song about it, and they're going to call it I'm Not Even Going To Ask How You Got Green Paw Prints On Your Underwear."

Patrick caught his eye, and that was it, they were both almost on the floor laughing, and some tiny and hurt part of Patrick that he had been nursing since London healed over in an instant.

~ * ~

Three hours later, Patrick's tidy living room was once again a wreck, and even Pete was looking owlish with exhaustion.

"Oh, man, I've gotta sleep," said Patrick, catching sight of his watch. "Do you want to stay? You look dead on your feet, maybe you shouldn't drive. You can stay, I have a spare room. I have two, actually."

Pete shrugged, coming up to his feet. "I'm fine," he said, and grabbed a few of the empty soda cans and junk food packages to carry them through to the kitchen. "It's not far. Plus, I've been home a day, but my mom really hasn't seen me yet."

Patrick shoved his own armful of trash into a bag and then walked with Pete towards the front door. "Okay, well. Come back soon, or call me or something, we'll look at that song again."

Pete nodded, and tugged the hood of his sweater over his head. "He's here tomorrow? Miyavi?" he asked and Patrick's heart sank at the return of the tension to his voice.

"Yeah," he said, slowly, "For a couple of hours. He just didn't want to sit in the airport all day."

Pete nodded, but Patrick couldn't see his expression in the dark hall. "Okay, well. Say hi for me."

"Yeah, okay," Patrick said. Neither of them moved.

"So, I'm going to go then," Pete said, finally. He turned and put his hand on the doorknob, but instead of opening the door, he leaned his head against it and blew out a heavy breath. He turned back to Patrick, and he looked strangely determined in the half-shadows of the hallway. "I could be fun too, Trick."

Patrick blinked at him, wishing he'd turned the light on when they'd come into the foyer. "You're already fun, Pete. You're more fun than I can handle, most of the time," he said, baffled.

Pete stared at him. "No, I mean. I could be _fun_."

Patrick's mouth dropped open. "You want. You're saying you could be _fun_? With me?" he said, his voice squeaking on the last word.

Pete nodded slowly, and took a deliberate step towards him. Patrick stepped back so quickly he almost fell over. "Pete! Holy crap! It wouldn't be fun with you!"

Pete jerked as if he'd been shot. "Oh," he said quietly. He turned to leave, and actually had the door open before Patrick managed to pull himself together. He thew himself past Pete, slamming the door closed, leaning full against it. "Jesus, Pete! That's not, I mean, I didn't mean that!"

Pete crossed his arms and looked at a spot somewhere over Patrick's shoulder. "That's what it sounded like."

"No! I mean, shit!" Patrick scrubbed his hands over his face. "Look, you're like, my best friend. You've known me since I was fifteen. You know me more than _I_ know me." He reached out and put his hand on Pete's arm. "If we, you know, if we did, it would be like, so cool, and amazing, but anything with you could never be just _fun_. There's too much. And there's the band. And." He ground to a halt. "It would always be more than fun," he repeated, finally.

Pete looked at Patrick's hand on his arm, and then, searchingly, at Patrick. "Yeah?" he said, uncrossing his arms and catching Patrick's hand as it slid down his arm.

"Yeah. _Yeah._ Of course it would!" They stood in the hallway, grinning at each other stupidly for a long moment. Then Pete took a deep breath and put his hand on Patrick's neck. "This is ok, then?" he said, slowly pulling Patrick closer. Patrick just grinned, fisted Pete's shirt and pulled him in for a suave kiss.

Or, Patrick meant it to be suave, but he pulled a little too hard, and Pete's face sort of slammed into his, and Patrick's head hit the door really hard, and he thought maybe he tasted blood.

Pete took a step back. "Ow," he said, reaching up to touch his lip.

Patrick rubbed the back of his head. "I think I have a concussion."

They stared at each other. Patrick shook his head. "Dude, this is weird."

"No!" Pete said, as he took a step forward. "It's only weird if we _make_ it weird. This is how it's supposed to be."

He leaned in, his eyes focused on Patrick's mouth. "Besides," he murmered against Patrick's lips, "It has to be less weird than with your freakishly tall Japanese boy. Did you stand on a _step_ to kiss him?"

Patrick pushed him away. "Okay, I have a rule. You don't talk about Miyavi, _I_ won't talk about Ashlee. 'Cause that's just, like, _wrong_." He stared at Pete intently. "And mean."

Pete pulled him back. "Yeah," he said, and he sounded a little ashamed of himself. "I just had. I don't know. Height envy, or something."

Patrick laughed. "Dude, I have height envy issues with _Joe_," he said wryly, and Pete chuckled, and leaned in again.

This time the kiss was soft, and Pete's hands were on his shoulders, but it was still, for the first few seconds, _weird_ and frankly just bad, too fast and noses at the wrong angle and all he could think was "dude, this is _Pete_, what the _fuck_". Pete's fingers curled tighter over his bicep, though, and he pulled Patrick just half an inch closer, and it was like a light came on: this was _Pete_, and Pete was too much fun to handle, sometimes, but there was never anything bad about them together, nothing weird, and then Patrick's ability to think was gone, the wheel in his head spinning nothing but Pete's name over and over.

When they pulled apart, breathless, long moments later, they were grinning hugely at one another, and Patrick almost started laughing with joy at Pete's expression. Pete buried his head in Patrick's neck, and kissed him behind his ear before murmuring, "You promised me there was a bed in this place?"

Patrick nodded, "Three of them," he said, and was distracted by the warm puff of Pete's laughter down his neck.

"One will do," he said, and stepped away, holding out a hand to Patrick. "Lead the way."

~ * ~

Hours later, Pete stretched lazily and rubbed his foot along Patrick's calf. "So I'm better, right?"

Patrick snorted and slapped him on the shoulder. "Dude! Shut _up_ already! It doesn't matter!"

Pete frowned. "I have to be better! Come on! He looks like a _girl_! And he has freakishly huge hands and feet!"

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Well, you know what they say about guys with big feet," he said, raising the sheet to look pointedly at Pete's own size seven appendages.

Pete looked stunned for a moment, and then growled. "Dude! That is not cool!" He threw himself at Patrick and began tickling him unmercifully.

"Big shoes!" Patrick sputtered out between the laughter. "Guys with big feet have big shoes!"

Pete snorted and draped himself over Patrick. He rested his chin on his hands, and looked at Patrick with a pathetic expression. "But, really, I _am_ better, right?"

Patrick reached out to cup Pete's face. "Oh, Pete," he murmured. "You know I am never going to answer that question, right?" And squealed when Pete attacked his ribs again in retribution.

~ * ~

They'd more or less closed the curtains when they finally made it upstairs last night, but there was enough of a gap that a narrow beam of the late autumn sun was striped across the bed. Patrick, sprawled bonelessly on his stomach, caught Pete's wrist to look at the watch he was, for some reason, still wearing. "We should get up," he said, drowsily, and let Pete's hand go again.

Pete leaned up on one elbow, and traced a pattern over Patrick's back with one finger.

"You should totally get a tattoo," Pete said, bending to kiss Patrick's shoulder blade and then swinging his legs off the bed.

"Property of Pete Wentz?" Patrick said, rolling onto one elbow and admiring the view as Pete wandered around the room picking up their clothes.

Pete paused, holding up the sock he had been frowning at. "Yeah, definitely," he said, with a grin. "But, seriously, you should. I'll hold your hand while you get something. Maybe I'll get a new one too."

Patrick sighed. "What is it with people wanting to mark me?" he said, and then caught his breath soundlessly when Pete frowned at him.

But Pete just shrugged, "It's how pale your skin is," he said equably, "The contrast of it, or something. Was I even _wearing_ underwear last night? I can't remember."

Patrick, relieved, just laughed. "You can borrow some. I even have some new, if you think I have cooties."

"Dude," Pete said, pulling a stupid face at him. "I think I've already got them if you do."

~ * ~

Pete was still upstairs when the doorbell rang. Patrick shoved the last corner of the bagel he was eating in his mouth and went to get it. Miyavi, shadowed by a burly security guard, was standing, grinning hugely, in the doorway. "_Ohayo_!" he said, brightly.

"Hey! Come in!" Patrick said, and Miyavi stepped in, before turning back to exchange a few words with the guard in Japanese. The guard raised his eyebrows at Patrick curiously, but nodded to Miyavi and reached in to close the door.

Miyavi kicked off his shoes and Patrick, remembering last night's conversation, almost choked trying not to laugh. Miyavi looked at him questioningly, but he just said, "Nothing! Never mind. Come in to the living room. How long have you got?"

Miyavi shrugged, and followed him into the living room. "Three, four hours. They will knock when it is time to go," he said, making a beeline for the musical instruments Patrick had arranged in one corner of the room. "I can play?" he asked, pointing to the guitar he and Patrick had found in LA.

"Yeah, of course," Patrick said, and turned when he heard a slight noise at the door.

Pete was standing there in jeans and his hoodie, which was unzipped to show a lot of bare skin, tattoos, and, Patrick was embarrassed to note, more than a few of the marks _he_ had left there. "Hi," he said, nodding to Miyavi, who had seated himself in Patrick's chair, and was looking at him with raised eyebrows.

"Hello Pete," he said, a smile playing around his mouth.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink?" Pete said, coming further into the room and laying a hand on Patrick's arm. "Trick?"

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Not for me. Miyavi?"

"No," Miyavi said, still smirking, and began to strum absently on his guitar. "Or. Coffee? If Patrick does not mind?"

Patrick nodded, and had started to turn towards the kitchen when Pete's hand on his arm stopped him. "No, don't. I know where everything is."

He looked challengingly at Miyavi, before stepping in and kissing Patrick lightly on the cheek and then quickly leaving the room.

Patrick felt his skin flare with colour, and Miyavi started to laugh. "He likes you," Miyavi sing-songed, plucking a few notes on the guitar, and Patrick spluttered and started coughing.

"Shut up!" he said, glaring at Miyavi even though he could feel a smile twisting his lips. Miyavi just laughed, and strummed a few more notes on the guitar.

"You like him. No more Miyavi for you-oo," he warbled.

"Oh, man," Patrick said, and palmed his face like he could stop the rising tide of his blush. Miyavi laughed harder. After a few moments though, he subsided, and strummed the guitar again, before looking at Patrick with a smile. "Fun?" he said.

Patrick paused for a second, inundated with memories. "Oh yeah," he said, feelingly, then flushed again, although Miyavi only grinned at him.

"Good," was all he said, and started to play something in earnest when Pete came in carrying three cups of coffee, his hoodie zipped up almost to the top.

It was awkward for a few minutes, but Pete, despite what he told the press, really was interested in music, even if he didn't write as much these days, and Miyavi was always willing to play and experiment. After a while Pete sat down at the piano, and they played together and separately for a while, Miyavi and Patrick trading the guitar that might have once belonged to Prince back and forth. Patrick even asked what he had been singing that one time when he scared the little Japanese reporter; Miyavi nearly went cross-eyed trying to translate, and Pete fell off the piano stool laughing at the expression on Patrick's face.

They had been playing around for a couple of hours when Pete's cellphone buzzed. "Ryan," he said, glancing at the display, "I'm just going to..." He slipped off the piano stool and gestured to the hallway.

Patrick nodded. "Ask him what happened to the rabbits," he said, grinning, and Pete winked at him.

Miyavi looked confused, but grinned at Patrick and carried on playing the guitar.

"Did you plan to buy the guitar, when we met?" Patrick said, after a moment, over the distant sound of Pete's ridiculous laugh.

Miyavi shrugged. "Maybe. It's a nice guitar."

"And it might have belonged to Prince. Maybe," Patrick said.

Miyavi grinned, and then stopped playing to hold the guitar out in front of himself. "Good guitar," he said. "Keep it ten years. Might have belonged to Prince. Definitely belonged to Patrick Stump. Played by Miyavi. Worth a million dollars!"

Patrick laughed, and then looked over as Pete came into the room, pocketing his phone. "Your guy's at the door," he said, "He says ten minutes."

Miyavi nodded, and handed Patrick the guitar. "Thank you," he said to Pete. Patrick set the guitar down gently in the corner. As he approached, Miyavi held out a hand and, with a brief glance over at Pete, bent to kiss him quickly, lightly, on the mouth.

"Tell me when you are in Japan," he said, releasing Patrick. "I will have a party, many Japanese musicians."

"We'll do that," said Pete, stepping into Patrick's space a little aggressively.

Patrick rolled his eyes, but smiled. "We will," he said. "That would be awesome."

There was another knock on the door, and the awkward moment broke up while they followed Miyavi to the door where his security guard was waiting.

"Bye," he said, cheerfully, and vanished out of the door, putting on dark glasses as he left. The security guard shut the door behind him.

Pete wrapped his arms around Patrick from behind, hooking his chin over Patrick's shoulder. "He's a good guy," he said, after a moment.

Patrick leaned back a little. "I know. I told you that."

"I suck," Pete said, sounding unrepentant. "I get jealous. And I'm never going to like him kissing you."

"I know," said Patrick. "I'm never going to take any shit from you."

"Yeah," said Pete. "I kind of love you anyway." He touched his lips to Patrick's neck, and then turned him round in his arms.

"Our next album is going to be full of sappy love songs, isn't it?" Patrick asked, long moments later.

Pete laughed. "We'll have to get Andy writing. Tap into his anarchist rage," he said, "Or, you could always steal Spencer and Jon's Underwear song. Brendon was singing it to me on the phone just now."

Patrick laughed, and Pete let him go, struck a pose and started to sing. "I think I'll let you handle the vocals if we do," he said, as Pete flung his arms out dramatically, crooning about his white boxers. "I can play the bass. You'll have to show me how to flip the guitar around my body. Ow, get off me, you loon," he said, shoving at Pete when he, still singing, tried to force Patrick to dance with him.

They scuffled, laughing, into the middle of the living room before dropping into the sofa, Patrick breathless and smiling so hard his face ached.

"Hi," said Pete, and ducked his head to kiss Patrick's collarbone.

"Hi," Patrick said, and threaded his fingers into the short hair at the nape of Pete's neck. "I kind of love you back."

* * *


	2. Like Guitar Strings and Sheet Music

Pete already knew he liked them tall and skinny. Hell, everyone in the world knew he liked them tall and skinny, since he hadn't exactly been subtle about how much he liked Mikey Way or Ryan Ross. Tall, skinny and young.

Patrick was young, but he was he exception to every rule Pete had otherwise. That kind of made it seem more right, somehow, as if the fact that Patrick didn't look or act or talk or think like anyone Pete had ever liked before made it possible for Patrick to be the thing that no-one else had ever been for Pete: permanent.

Knowing that, though, didn't stop him from _just looking_ at tall and skinny guys. Patrick knew about _just looking_. Patrick had also tried to strangle him once at a gas station, so Pete definitely believed Patrick when he said that doing more than _just looking_ would have terrible, terrible results.

His problem was that right now, he was _just looking_ at his boyfriend's ex-whatever-he'd-been. Their paths had crossed again in Australia, and Patrick had invited Miyavi over to their hotel suite for an afternoon. Miyavi was bent over his guitar, plucking out the tune he and Patrick had been playing around with until Patrick had excused himself for a moment. Miyavi was tall and skinny and just ambiguous enough to appeal to Pete's enjoyment of ambiguity, and he was also the man Patrick had allowed really very close to him.

Whenever he saw Patrick with Miyavi, Pete was gnawed by jealousy, eaten up by it, but he was also almost obsessively curious. Patrick refused to answer any questions about the time he'd spent with Miyavi, but Pete remembered the hotel room in London: the long swirls of black painted delicately on Patrick's skin, the tangled mess of sheets, and most of all, the look of sweet, exhausted satisfaction that he'd seen in Patrick's eyes before Pete had opened his big (_jealous_) mouth and ruined his day of fun for him.

It actually took a lot of thought and effort to get Patrick into that state, Pete had discovered, and, in between bouts of feeling murderously pissed off that Miyavi had managed it at all, Pete found himself wondering just what exactly this kid had done to Patrick to get him there.

"You like to look," Miyavi said, suddenly, and Pete jumped, aware he had been staring at Miyavi for a while.

"What?" he said, grateful that, unlike Patrick, he didn't blush. "No!"

"He does," Patrick said, amused, from behind him before dropping into the seat next to Pete on the sofa. "He's like the world's biggest voyeur."

"I'm not!" Pete protested, aware that Patrick, at least, knew he was lying -- knew _intimately_ that he was lying -- and Miyavi could probably read that on Patrick's laughing face. "Dude, shut up!"__

Miyavi stood up and put his guitar down carefully, walking over to sit on the ottoman in front of the sofa. He reached out for Patrick's hand, but looked at Pete: "May I?" he said.

Pete felt the weight of Patrick's eyes on him. "Uh," he said, and thought about it, about the way that Patrick trusted him, about the way he trusted Patrick, about the storm of curiosity in his head whenever he thought of Patrick with this man. "If Trick wants it," he said, finally.

Miyavi grinned at him, and then turned to Patrick, who looked closely at Pete and then leaned into the space between them to meet Miyavi's kiss.

It looked... it looked soft. Patrick's hands had immediately climbed up into Miyavi's hair, white against the rough black stands, but they weren't holding on, just sort of carding through the ends gently. After a long moment, Miyavi released Patrick, who looked for a moment like he was going to reach for another kiss, but finally sat back, his pale skin starting to flood with colour. He looked at Pete, their eyes locking for a long moment, Patrick's expression opaque and unreadable.

"May I?" Miyavi said again, but this time his hand was held out to Pete.

"Yeah," Pete said, huskily, "I mean. Yeah, if Patrick doesn't mind."

"I don't mind, once," said Patrick, a note of warning in his voice, and Pete thought again about the way that Patrick trusted him.

Miyavi's kiss was confusing at first because it was a little like Patrick, like guitar strings and sheet music, but then Miyavi let the ring in his lip graze against Pete's mouth, and it wasn't anything like Patrick. It was all mercurial warmth, with a biting edge of wickedness, and when Pete pulled away he saw the same in Miyavi's eyes.

Patrick was looking at them warily though, so Pete turned to complete the triangle, pulling Patrick in close, deftly tugging away Patrick's glasses so he could kiss him without impediment, without the barrier of glass between them. He was aggressive where Miyavi had been gentle with Patrick, licking at Patrick's lips until he parted them, leaning hard into him until Patrick was forced to drop a hand behind his back to keep himself upright.

It was Patrick who ended it, a hand pressing to Pete's chest and pushing him away. "No," he said, when Pete made an inarticulate protest, and he stood up and walked away to the tiny kitchenette, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge and gulping it down.

Pete watched for a moment, then turned to face Miyavi. He was watching Patrick, his expression inscrutable, but when he noticed Pete's scrutiny he quirked his eyebrows, then reached over to pick up the guitar again, humming absently as he began to play once again.

Pete watched him play for a while, until Patrick came back to sit on the sofa and make suggestions about the music, casually ignoring Pete except for these tiny darting glances that Pete guessed he wasn't supposed to see.

Neither the kisses nor Pete's sexual preferences were mentioned again, and Pete would almost have begun to question his sanity, whether the strange little interlude had happened at all, if Patrick hadn't been watching him quite so closely. When Miyavi left, after asking them again to come to his party when they hit Japan in a few weeks, Patrick walked him to the door, then disappeared to talk to Andy and didn't come back until Pete was already mostly asleep.

"Pete," he heard Patrick whisper as he settled into bed, but Pete didn't move, didn't make a noise, and Patrick said nothing more, just curled around a pillow and slept, breathing softly against Pete's skin until he too was lulled into sleep.

* * *

Patrick was cheerful and laughing when they came back from Miyavi's party, and Pete couldn't understand why. The majority of people at the party had been Japanese, few of them had spoken English, and he and Patrick had been distinctly under dressed compared to their glitter and feather decorated fellow guests. Usually that sort of thing was bothersome to Patrick, who worried about things like whether he fit in and whether he was meeting expectations, whereas Pete mostly knew he _didn't_ fit in and tried to force other people's expectations to fit to him instead. Pete couldn't understand Patrick's attitude, especially as Miyavi had almost ignored them for the entire time they were there, his interest focussed on another man. In Patrick's place, Pete would have found that unbearable.

Patrick, though, seemed unconcerned, even happy to see Miyavi mid-seduction of Kame. "He e-mailed me that he had someone at the party," Patrick said, when Pete finally asked. "He sent a photo."

Pete curled up smaller in his bed, watching Patrick amble vaguely around their suite, picking things up and putting them down again as if he were organizing stuff (though Pete knew for certain that in the morning Patrick wouldn't be able to find a single thing he'd moved).

"How can you," Pete started, and stopped when Patrick turned amused eyes on him.

"How can I be happy for someone I slept when he's sleeping with someone else?" Patrick said, and Pete nodded, wondering when he became so predictable. Patrick shrugged. "I just can. I like him."

"You kissed him in Australia," Pete said, and was surprised at how accusing the words sounded. "In front of me, even."

Patrick looked thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "I kind of wondered when you were going to want to talk about that."

"I don't want to," Pete said, and Patrick watched him for a long moment until he squirmed and said again, firmly, "I don't."

"Okay," said Patrick, but he didn't look away, and Pete was caught in his too-open, too-honest eyes. He was the first to look away.


End file.
